"When I say I'm the CEO of Jamba, their faces light up. It doesn't matter who it is - I've never had any other reaction," he said last week in an interview in the Carrot Room at the company's Emeryville headquarters.

Recalling a recent awards ceremony, he said, "There was a woman who wanted to take a picture with me so she could show it to her kids. It's just amazing."

Then there's the product placement, which most companies pay for. Jamba Juice gets it for free - like it or not.

Whether it's portrayed as the "corporate juice pimps" who bedevil juice bar owner Greg Kinnear in the movie "Baby Mama," or the corporate sponsor of Jane Krakowski's romance with James Franco in a "30 Rock" episode, viewers never know where Jamba Juice is going to pop up next.

The company that started as a single Juice Club in San Luis Obispo marked its 20th anniversary in April.

"I think in many ways, Jamba was ahead of its time," White said. "If you dial back the clock 20 years ago, Jamba was like astronaut food for consumers. It really awakened a fun and interesting way for consumers to think they were doing something good for themselves."

The company changed its name to Jamba Juice in 1995 and in 2006 merged with Services Acquisition Corp. International, which changed its name to Jamba Inc. and took the company public.

Unlike Jamba, White does not have California roots.

He grew up in St. Louis, son of a father who, at 78, still works as a skycap at the St. Louis airport and a mother who is retired from a career as a medical lab technician. He remains close with his parents and his younger sister, an entrepreneur.

Tough time to take over

It was his parents, White said, who instilled in him his work ethic and his commitment to giving back to the community.

He attended public school, studied business and marketing at the University of Missouri - where he met his future bride, a journalism major - and earned an master of business administration from Fontbonne University.

White started his career at Coca-Cola before moving to Ralston Purina, where he spent 15 years in 13 different jobs before being recruited by Gillette to help orchestrate that company's turnaround. Later, White was recruited by Safeway, which put him in charge of creating that retailer's signature brands. Two years ago, Jamba came knocking.

The flailing company was looking for someone who not only had turnaround experience, but who could implement a growth strategy once the company was back on track.

"We're in the late innings of the turnaround," White said. "We hope to have the turnaround fully complete in the middle of next year."

White couldn't have picked a worse time to land the mission: It was the first week of December 2008; Lehman Bros. had recently collapsed; GM, Ford and Chrysler were motoring toward bankruptcy; and the National Bureau of Economic Research had stated the obvious - the country was in a recession.

"It's been pretty tough sledding," White said, adding, "You learn a set of lessons that I will never forget, no matter the state of the economy."

Among them was a new morning discipline that he'd never had to invoke at his blue-chip employers.

"The first two things I do when I come in is, I look at the daily sales from the day before, and I check the cash," he said. "I've never been in a business where I needed to do that, but now I think that's just a good management practice, whether you need to or not."

Instead of hunkering down, however, he projected a vision for the brand and invested in product development.

"We made shorter-term investments and choices that didn't disadvantage the long-term health of the brand," he said. "We want to be prepared when the economy starts to turn."

'Recession is a reset'

When that will be is anyone's guess, but of one thing White feels sure: "I believe that consumers are changed forevermore. ... Value is much more important than it ever was. We have to find ways to surprise and delight the consumer.

"This recession is a reset."

White engaged three significant shifts in strategy. He broadened the menu to include items such as sandwich wraps, oatmeal and organic tea and coffee. He set the company on the path toward having more franchises than company-owned stores to drain risk from the business model. And he opened up licensing opportunities for the Jamba brand, a move that is manifesting itself in such products as make-your-own smoothie kits and a healthy energy drink being developed in partnership with Nestle.

"We don't think there is any player that is as firmly entrenched from a health and wellness perspective as Jamba." White said. "We get an instant halo in the healthy space."

The company, which employs about 8,000 people across the United States, is poised to expand into Canada and South Korea as well as universities, airports, malls and schools.

Making parents proud

The decisive hand White uses to steer the company mirrors the singularity of purpose he applied to getting where he is today.

"I always thought I would work with a great consumer brand, and Jamba is the most incredible brand - it has meaning and purpose and a soul. And that I'd lead a great organization."

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Perhaps more important, White said, "I wanted to always do work that would make my parents proud."

Quote: "I believe that consumers are changed forevermore. We've retooled our business model; we have no false assumptions that things are going to return to the way they were three years ago. ... This recession is a reset."

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